question for wedding photographers

[supjak]

What you do if customer is keen to see all pictures taken on wedding day and wants to say which ones he wants to get?
thanx for your opinions and experiences.

[andrewrodney]

Re: question for wedding photographers

Don't see why that be a problem.

[Mike]

Re: question for wedding photographers

Back in film days we made proof prints, took out obvious duplicates and bad shots, placed the keepers in an album and gave them to the customer. We found that about 200 proofs seemed to be a limit to most customers. Going above that number slowed them down as to the choices they wanted and they seemed to lose the ability to make up their mind. Going above 300 or so often meant that they could never make a decision and we usually never saw them again.

After digital we kept seeing other photographers making comments like "we shot 1500, trimmed it down to 500 and our customers loved it!" (the numbers might very a bit).

For us, those kind of numbers just did not make economic sense since we still had the problem of no or very low print sales when we had those quantities' of images. It takes time (which is money) to sort through that many images. We tried the model of just selling disks of images but always worried about the quality of the prints made at the usual consumer places.

Then came the folks with "I need the practice so I will shoot your wedding for free) and we just bailed out of the wedding business. Really enjoyed spending some time on weekends with my family.

As for your question, I would certainly not do any large amount of retouching on images before the customer has sorted through them. I would think that this would have to be in your contract or something.

Another problem we sometimes had was a customer "remembering" a shot that we never took. That could be a problem!

Anyway, good luck.

[supjak]

Re: question for wedding photographers

The problem is that photographer takes for example 1200 pictures during the whole day. Nobody gives all pictures to customer but if customer sees all of them can say " I like all and I want to get all". contract says unlimited number of pictures so customer doesn't limit himself. wants to take everything even those unsuccessful ones. If you provide for example 300 shots from single wedding now you must to do four times your usual job for single money. And you sell many pictures which you don't like.
Of course I am grateful for all opinions. but in this case probably fashion photographer for example and wedding photographer will have different opinions.

[insmac]

Re: question for wedding photographers

Well the only way is to sign the contract upfront where it clearly states the number of images you will deliver to the client. You need to have that on paper, otherwise it is going to be a mess.

A contract allowing for an unlimited amount of pictures to be delivered is - in my opinion - a really bad one.

[supjak]

Re: question for wedding photographers

yes, you are right but nowadays most photographers (at least in UK) offers unlimited number of pictures

[Mike]

Re: question for wedding photographers

Remember that you are operating a business. You control how that business is run. So offer a contract or whatever on your terms. If your customers accept it fine, if not you either change the terms or no longer offer that service.

That's the way the business world works.

[insmac]

Re: question for wedding photographers

yes, you are right but nowadays most photographers (at least in UK) offers unlimited number of pictures

Hold on a sec. The initial question was whether to allow the Client to see the digital contact sheet with all the raw images and select a specific number of shots for the postproduction. Effectively you stick to x images per wedding.

But now you've said it is common for the photographer to process and send ALL of the images taken on the wedding to the Client? I hope you're not seriously considering this. It's like a restaurant would host an unlimited amount of guests per each wedding for a fixed fee. Not gonna happen and I can't see any reason why a photographer would do it differently.

There are a lot of bad things in the industry which are quite common. Don't do it just because some fellow does it. Make your own options.

[supjak]

Re: question for wedding photographers

Most of photographers advertise "unlimited number" but I don't think that any of them thinks about all images from the day. I know that some (especially good ones) promise to deliver 100 or 150 images. So others try to be "better" and promise "unlimited". I am new person on the market so trying to find my place just presented offer not very different from what I see on other photographers websites. But learning from experience I am updating my offer very soon Typical client doesn't make any problem about "unlimited" an is happy to get all images which I want to give, but from time to time troublemaker comes....

[insmac]

Re: question for wedding photographers

I see. Makes sense. Most people don't argue about each paragraph in the signed contract so you're going to be fine if include a number of shots delivered. There's going to be that troublesome one once in a while, it's just how it works

[westernframes]

Re: question for wedding photographers

Hi, we are a team of disgnrs from India.namely western frames. sir we offer grand album disigning @ very low rate.5$ to 8$ per page. to be frank, being in india like a depressed ecnomy helping us a great deal to provide pakka service at even this low price. Sir we are looking for genuine clients who can provide works on a regular manner. Plese contact us [email protected] Our relation will be a advantage to your business.

[Benny Profane]

Re: question for wedding photographers

You're from India and your name is Frank?

[westernframes]

Re: question for wedding photographers

I am not Frank , Dominic . Grammatical error in Indian English is so common.it's not a matter. Be Frank do you need my service I am happy to work for you.guday

[Benny Profane]

Re: question for wedding photographers

I think I'm developing a serious dent in my forehead from my palm hitting it so much.